May 2013 Arts Calendar

What you need to do, see, and hear this month

Photo by Joan Marcus

Theater

Out of the Pan Into the Fire • The closure of Theatre de la Jeune Lune, a long five years ago, scattered its primary actors. But Dominique Serrand and Steven Epp have quietly revived the brand in their new troupe, The Moving Company, and here, joined by Nathan Keepers and Christina Baldwin, they get the band back together for a physical, image-heavy riff on the Brothers Grimm. • 5/3–26, southerntheater.org

Music

Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires• Last time through town, Bradley blew the roof off the Fine Line, set it on fire, and ate it. More or less. Hard to believe we’ll be treated to this kind of soul, forged over two decades of hardship (including a stint as a James Brown impersonator), at the intimate Cedar. But it’s perfect for playing off his second, more psychedelic Daptone album. • 5/7, thecedar.org

Film

Hitchcock Film Festival • The Birds, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rope—Hitchcock is hip again, and the evidence, so to speak, is right here. Riverview Theater and the Trylon Microcinema team up for this fifth-annual suspense fest running the length and breadth of the master’s career, from Jimmy Stewart’s peeping-Tom turn in Rear Window to the silent The Lodger (with live accompaniment).
• 5/10–12, take-up.org

[THE RUNNERS-UP]

Sustainability Film Series: The City Dark • Sleepless cities, the science of darkness, and what’s lost when night disappears. • 5/2, bellmuseum.umn.edu

Dance

Pilobolus• Any dance troupe inclined to name itself after a fungus that shoots spores at 45 miles per hour, as these brilliant contortionists did in 1971 at Dartmouth College, deserves your cash and attention. They’ve been reshaping perceptions of what the body can do ever since, and they’ll bring their mind-bending and body-bending act to the Ordway for a rare laugh-fest of a dance show. • 5/4, ordway.org

[THE RUNNERS-UP]

Zenon Dance Company • Two world premieres in two weekends. Because they can.
• 5/3–12, thecowlescenter.org

Visual Arts

Fritz Haeg: At Home in the City • Landscape designer/educator/gardener Fritz Haeg gives the phrase “flower power” new meaning this summer at the Walker. First, he’ll install a geodesic dome surrounded by native Minnesota plants in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Then comes Domestic Integrities A05, his exhibition examining how landscapes are harvested and brought indoors. Groovy. • 5/11–11/17, walkerart.org

Events

May Day Parade • In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre has always been run on a shoestring. This year, that string became shorter and more frayed than usual. Yet the show will go on, trundling down Bloomington Avenue into Powderhorn Park. This year’s theme, “See the World,” serves up a cautionary tale about taking care of the earth—a repetitive message that’s powerful nonetheless. • 5/5, hobt.org